In Kṛṣṇa’s Vedic civilization, upanayana —
the investiture with the sacred thread and
brahma-gāyatrī — is exclusively conferred
upon qualified men, with women and
śūdras being excluded. In the early days,
Śrīla Prabhupāda, to pacify a few irate
female disciples who had revolted because
of not getting second initiation, started the
practice of granting brahma-gāyatrī to his
female disciples but without the sacred
thread, implying they were not genuine
brāhmaṇas. As time passed and senior
devotees gained deeper knowledge of
Kṛṣṇa’s Vedic culture they realized what
had happened. Some who had by now
become initiating gurus reverted to
Kṛṣṇa’s original standard and ceased
giving their female disciples brahmagāyatrī
at the time of second initiation and
became more stringent with male
disciples, reserving it only for those
displaying brahminical tendencies. This
shift challenged those advocating for
Female Diksa Gurus in ISKCON and other
feminist initiatives. Consequently, the
GBC approached SAC for guidance on
this matter and SAC provided
āpasiddhāntik and heterodox arguments to
sanction brahma-gāyatrī for women and
This essay serves as an initial response to
SAC’s paper. Here, we highlight that SAC
concocted its method of textual
interpretation (that yields predetermined
results) while disregarding Kṛṣṇa’s original
method — Mīmāṁsā. We emphasize the
importance of understanding the guru’s
“mano-'bhīṣṭaṁ” (mind’s desire) when
interpreting his actions, which are
ultimately rooted in śāstra.
SAC misunderstands our dīkṣā process.
Since brahma-gāyatrī is part of our dīkṣā
protocol we must first understand how our
system of dīkṣā works.Thus we analyze the
initiation framework in our sampradāya —
which contains elements of Bhāgavata,
Pañcarātrika, and Vaidika traditions.
Next we show that SAC ignored the
fundamental question on which
everything hinges — Why did Śrīla
Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura
introduce upanayana? And, show that
after answering this question SAC’s whole
argument collapses. We also discuss the
GBC’s flawed resolutions which they
based on SAC’s non-peer reviewed paper.

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